


bewitched, bothered, and bewildered

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Series: the great haroldini verse [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fortune Telling, Ghosts, M/M, Magic, a mild case of haunting, eh harry-centric lilo?????, psychic wizard harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-06 22:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4238328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“How many have you got left?” Liam asks, doing a mental count of the candles. There’s sixteen already. At some point they’re going to set off the smoke alarm.</i><br/><i>“Ten is for romancing, twenty is for communing with the dead, thirty is for blood sacrificing,” Harry explains casually.</i><br/><i>“So four more,” Liam hopes.</i><br/><i>“Yes, Liam, four.” He places the final four candles and they flare to life at once with a lazy wave of his hand. </i> </p><p>[Or a few time stamps to <i>love potion no. 9</i>]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In other news when will AO3 start to recognize 'psychic wizard harry' as a tag, I seek justice and I will not rest.
> 
> Thanks to my Tommos for giving this a lookover and laughing at my dumb jokes!

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Louis says, staring up at the script that says _Palm Reading, Potions, and Puns_ on the windows of Coven Tree with a look of absolute distrust.

“It’ll be great,” Liam enthuses. “Really. Harry’s… well. Harry’s something.”

“A glowing recommendation.”

The door opens, nearly knocking into Liam, and Niall pops his head out to survey the two of them. “Harry says shit or get off the pot, he’s got a full afternoon ahead of him.”

Louis casts his disapproving look on Liam, but moves inside none the less. Liam places a gentle, reassuring hand to his back and follows him and Niall through the beaded curtain into the dark back room. Niall bows Louis to the plush crimson chair, which Louis does not take.

“Suit yourself,” Niall says and leaves them alone.

Liam curls up behind Louis, linking his hands around Louis stomach and mumbles, “You said you’d give it a try.”

“I said I’d come,” Louis argues. “I distinctly remember making no promises about trying.”

“I’d like you to try.”

Louis makes a little noise in the back of his throat and pulls out of Liam’s arms. Liam’s worried for a moment he’s pushed him a little too far, but Louis just plops down in the crimson chair and looks expectantly up at Liam, probably for compliments.

“Thank you,” Liam says.

“It’s not scary, I promise,” Harry says, appearing from nowhere, or perhaps the backroom. It’s hard to tell with how dark everything is.

“Liam, it’s lovely to see you again,” he adds warmly.

“And you, Harry. Haroldini? Harry?”

“Harry’s fine.” He shakes his head. “The effect is sort of ruined now anyway. You must be Louis.”

“I must be,” Louis says, giving Harry a critical once over.

Liam reaches over and squeezes his shoulder. Louis doesn’t seem to calm down though. Harry takes it in stride, settling into his seat and reaching out to Louis.

“May I have your hands, please?”

Louis looks calculating for a moment before slowly reaching his right hand over to Harry.

“And the other.”

Louis complies, looking none too pleased about it. Harry holds them contemplatively for a moment.

“Your hands are really dry. You should moisturize,” Harry says, turning Louis’ hands over and running his fingers lightly along his skin. Louis looks murderous. “I think I might have something.”

“Um,” Louis says, but Harry shouts over him.

“Niall. NIALL. Don’t give me that look, Liam, it’s not magic moisturizer, it’s from the shops. NIALL.”

“What?” Niall shouts back.

“Bring the moisturizer. The nice one,” he bellows.

Louis turns a sharp look to Liam and Liam makes a placating hand gesture.

“What the fuck do you need moisturizer for?”

“I just need it, Niall, would you bring it?”

“Why don’t you go get it?”

“I’m in the middle of a reading – it’s just – we’re spending more time arguing about it than if you would – oh, thank you,” Harry stops himself just as Niall thumps a tub of cream on the table, causing the crystal ball to wobble precariously. Niall grumbles something and leaves them to it.

Harry seems to take moisturizing Louis’ hands very seriously, almost humming to himself as he fixates on them. Louis looks like he’s going to jerk his hands back, but then Harry starts speaking, low and steady.

“You have a baby brother.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, still the very picture of skepticism.

“Oh. He’s precious.” He gives an approving nod and Liam has to wonder what he’s seeing.

“Thanks,” Louis says shortly. Harry’s not wrong. He is very precious.

“Think he’s going to start walking on his own on Saturday. You should take the train home.” Harry nods and throws a quick glance to Liam and winks.

“I’ll get right on it.”

The rest of the consultation doesn’t go much better. Harry continues to pull amazing things about Louis’ past and future and job and family out of the air and Louis continues to look displeased and Liam starts to worry if he isn’t going to be in trouble at the end of this.

“Now, this next part is private, Liam, if you’ll excuse us,” Harry says.

Louis turns wide, threatening eyes up at Liam. Liam knows what that face means, it means _don’t you dare fucking leave me here alone_. He doesn’t have a choice though, so he steps out to the waiting area.

He chats idly with Niall, stretching to hear any sort of hint of what Harry discusses with Louis. He hears nothing, frustratingly enough. He’s more than a little curious. He had a little trepidation himself bringing Louis here, what with Harry’s rather iffy track record, but Louis needed some reassurance. He’s been stressed lately, and Liam needed a little more back up to let him know everything was going to turn out okay in the end.

Louis is uncharacteristically quiet when he enters the waiting room and heads straight for Liam. Harry looks rather pleased with himself, so he’s hoping it’s not all bad news.

“On the house,” Harry says. “Off you go.”

“Now, hang on,” Niall starts but Harry claps a hand over his mouth.

“On the house,” he repeats and shoos them out with a slap to both of their asses.

As soon as the door closes behind them, Louis snatches Liam’s hand and presses him to the window. It takes Liam a solid ten seconds to register that Louis is kissing him and it’s only right that he kiss back. It’s lovely, if not a little desperate, and Liam has questions, but he’s not in a position to ask them.

“Harry says not against the window, please. He’s just cleaned it,” Niall says, drawing their attention to where he’s poked his head around the door again. He gives them a thumbs up and pops back in.

“What was that for?” Liam asks, although he likes to think Louis doesn’t need a reason.

“Don’t worry about it,” Louis says. They slowly begin their walk to the tube, Louis nudging against his side until Liam wraps his arm around him, which seems to have been his end game. He clears his throat and puts on a nonchalant tone. “Do you want to. Ehm. Do you want to come up to Donny with me Saturday? My family and all.“

Liam smiles, not a little smug. “I’d love to.”

\--


	2. Chapter 2

Louis knocks on the wall and Liam doesn’t have time to respond before he can hear Louis thumping through his flat to come over to Liam’s. After the fourth time he’d done this, Liam had given him a key so he didn’t have to get up and let him in.

He carefully moves his laptop to his nightstand just in time because when Louis enters Liam’s bedroom, he flops facedown onto the bed without care of where Liam is or what Liam’s doing.

“Liiiiiiiiiam,” he moans into the duvet.

Liam pats him lightly on the back. “What’s it done tonight?”

“Glued all me plates to the ceiling with some sort of ectoplasmic goo.”

“You should probably stop trying to throw your plates at it,” Liam answers. “Seeing’s how it’s not got a corporeal form and all.”

Louis turns his head to peer up at him. “ _Corporeal form_ , look at you. Someone’s been googling.”

He hasn’t. He’s called Harry about five times. He’s been trying to broach the subject for days, but Louis’ been insistent that he’s not going to do anything about the ghost or the spirit or the poltergeist, whatever it is. He insists that he’s going to win through sheer stubbornness alone. He’ll never surrender.

Liam doesn’t want to tell him that crashing at Liam’s place five nights out of seven may constitute surrendering.

“I could… I could ask Harry to come ‘round, you know, give it a look,” Liam says lightly. “He might have some ideas.”

Louis makes a face. “No.”

“Tommo.”

“No.”

“But.”

“No.”

“Well, I’m calling him anyway.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Louis snaps, but he’s not mad because he’s shuffling up the bed to prod at Liam until he’s cuddle-ready. Liam clicks the lights off and they settle in together. In the silence they can hear a crash next door. The ectoplasm must be losing its strength.

“I’ve got this theory,” Louis says and Liam hums in encouragement, his eyes slowly blinking shut. “Dying cat orgasm lady upstairs finally snapped after I put that vibrator in her mailbox and murdered her husband because she realized she was horribly unfulfilled. He knows I’ve done it and he’s come back to haunt me.”

“That could be it,” Liam says, but through his drowsiness it takes him a moment to catch onto that first bit. “I’m sorry, what did you put in her mailbox?”

\--

Liam calls Harry on his lunch break the next day, lazily clicking through his spreadsheet as the phone rings.

“You can get rid of ectoplasm by spraying Windolene on it,” Harry says instead of hello.

“Cheers, mate,” Liam says because that is actually useful information. “But I’ve got to get rid of it. The ghost, I mean, in addition to the ectoplasm -- Windolene, who knew? Anyway I’ve followed all of your suggestions, done the salt and stuff, nothing’s working.”

“I _think_ the salt only works to keep spirits out. No use if the spirit’s already in.”

“You think?” Liam asks. “You aren’t pulling this sort of stuff from a book? I’m just throwing salt everywhere because you _think_ it’ll help? Salt’s messy, Harry, I’ve been walking around with salt between my toes for days.”

“I told you it wasn’t my area of expertise!” Harry argues, slipping into that exasperated tone he uses with Liam more often than not. “I’m more of a… living person kind of psychic.”

Liam thinks hard about it. It seems it’s up to him to come up with all of the answers then. “What about one of those Ouija boards, have you got one of them?”

“Of course,” Harry says like he’s offended.

“Well, why don’t we use that?”

“Ehhhhm,” Harry says, long and full of consideration. “I suppose I could give it a go. Try to talk to it. I mean, that’s not the most effective method of communication. You would have much better luck trying to use -- ”

“Perfect, I’ll see you tonight?” Liam says quickly because he’s got what he wanted. He can vaguely hear Harry throwing another _ehhhhm_ down the line, but he hangs up before he hears anything else.

\--

They come at midnight, when the spirits are most vulnerable -- or so Harry says when he appears at Louis’ door draped in his shawl and his fedora. Niall stands behind him loaded up with three large cases, looking impatiently at Harry as he peers into the flat without entering.

“Oh, yes, this is an angry spirit,” he says, turning wide eyes to Liam. “What has Louis done to it?”

“I’ve not done shit,” Louis snaps, but Liam slides one hand over his mouth and the other around his shoulders.

“There’s been a lot of swearing and threatening and plate throwing,” Liam explains. “Among other things.”

Harry purses his lips and sighs at Louis with a judgment-filled shake of his head. Louis lurches at Harry, but Liam holds firm, dragging him away from the doorway so Harry and Niall can enter. Louis lashes out with a slap to Liam’s dick and he twists away out of Liam’s arms. He’s grumpy. He must be nervous now that they’re actually going to do something about it. Now that it’s not something he can ignore until it hopefully goes away.

“Glorified fuckin’ pack mule,” he thinks he hears Niall grumble as he unpacks all of the cases onto the kitchen table that Liam pulled out into the direct center of the flat as Harry had requested. He carefully throws a crimson table cloth over it and settles the crystal ball in the center. Liam watches him pull a tape measure out to double check it’s directly in the center.

Meanwhile Harry carefully steps through the flat, waving some sort of smoking twig about that leaves a pleasant aroma along his trail. Liam considers asking Harry for a couple of them for his place.

“Is all of this really necessary?” Louis asks, swiping his hand furiously through the air, his nose wrinkling rather adorably at the smell.

“Not really, but I’m doing you a favor,” Harry says. He shakes the twig a couple of times in Louis’ direction. “It smells like locker room sex in here.”

Liam puts his face in his hands as Louis folds his arms and says, “I won’t apologize for that.”

Once Harry completes his trail of twig smoke, he scuttles around and places candles in strategic places, sometimes waving his hands or touching the ground before he leaves them there and moves on. Liam spies one, expecting it to be something a bit fancy, but they’re just cheap candles from Tesco’s. Liam tries not to feel a little disappointed.

“How many have you got left?” Liam asks, doing a mental count of the candles. There’s sixteen already. At some point they’re going to set off the smoke alarm.

“Ten is for romancing, twenty is for communing with the dead, thirty is for blood sacrificing,” Harry explains casually.

“So four more,” Liam hopes.

“Yes, Liam, four.” He places the final four candles and they flare to life at once with a lazy wave of his hand.

Liam spies Louis chewing pretty intently on his thumb where he stands in the corner. His sharp eyes assess the scene; his face is pulled into a frown, causing a crease between his eyebrows. This is Stressed Louis, Liam’s least favorite kind of Louis. Liam sidles up next to him, sliding an arm around his back to rest at his waist and tug him in.

“All right?” Liam mumbles, pressing a kiss to Louis’ temple.

“S’my home,” Louis says, his eyes moving to critically survey Harry and Niall as they argue about whether the crystal ball has the appropriate amount of shine. “What if it isn’t mine anymore?”

Liam fights the impulse to tell him, _you always have a home at mine_.

“You don’t think it’s weird that it hasn’t tried to throw anything at Harry’s head since he’s been here?” Louis asks, shifting in Liam’s arms to press closer to him. “I mean, I always want to chuck something at Harry’s head and I’m not even a malevolent spirit.”

Liam chuckles, which makes Louis crack a smile for the first time, even if it’s just a small one.

Niall switches off all of the lights and beckons them to gather around Louis’ kitchen table. Once they’re settled into their chairs, Harry asks, “Niall, have you got the pitch pipe?”

Niall waves the round silver pipe, etched with small sigils Liam doesn't recognize. “Louis, what’s your range?”

“I’m sorry?” Louis makes a face at him.

“Your vocal range.”

“How the fuck should I know?”

“Sorry,” Liam interrupts. “Are we meant to be singing? I thought there might have been a spell. Or the Ouija board we talked about.”

“Of the four of us, which is a Phase Two wizard and a low-level psychic, Liam?” Harry drawls.

Liam does a headcount. “You are.”

“That’s right. Please shut up or it won’t work. Niall, if you would.”

Niall shows each of them their parts individually and then pulls them together to hold their notes in harmony for a few moments. When their voices mesh together in a four-part _mmmm_ , the candle flames dance frantically, throwing violent shadows across the room. They cut off at Niall’s signal just as the room starts to chill considerably.

“Fuck,” Louis whispers when the room stabilizes.

Niall nods. “Once more, two bars of four, watch me for the tempo, and we’ll have opened communication, yeah?”

They pick up their notes again with a longer _mmmm_ until the candles extinguish completely and the only light left in the room is the lavender glow from the crystal ball. The temperature has dropped considerably and suddenly Harry’s shawl looks a lot more functional and a lot less idiotic.

Louis’ hand finds its way to Liam’s thigh to squeeze at it nervously, so Liam captures his hand and gives it a squeeze of his own.

“Hate this bit,” Niall says, his hands flexing where they rest on the table. Liam’s with him, honestly.

Harry must wave his hand again because the candles flicker back on and Liam can see their breaths in the air.

“I am calling upon the spirit who haunts this flat, I am calling in peace, to seek out peace, so that you may rest in peace,” he rumbles, his voice somehow gaining an echoing quality. He waits for a moment and frowns nothing appears to happen. “I am calling upon the spirit who haunts this flat, could you give us a moment of your time?”

He waits for another moment and then perks up. “Oh, hello. Yes, hi, are you the spirit who’s haunting this flat? No? Oh, sorry to have woken you, but I actually, I just need to talk to the one who’s haunting this flat.”

Liam turns a confused look over to Niall who shrugs like this is a common occurrence.

“I’m really not taking requests at the moment, I have some business --” Harry continues before he sighs deeply and opens his eyes to throw an impatient look at Liam. He makes a little motion with his hand, the one that means _blah blah blah_. “Yes, all right, yes I can. Niall, have you got the paper -- thank you.”

He clicks the pen on when Niall hands it to him and he begins to carefully take notes. “One more time for me? Husband. Cheating bastard. I got you. Mmhm. No, I won’t say that. Because it’s quite rude. Okay. Yes, I’ve got it all down. Thank you, please move on and, you know, have a pleasant afterlife.”

Louis thunks his head rather violently down onto the table, causing the crystal ball to wobble precariously before it rights itself.

“Sorry about that,” Harry says with a sheepish grin. He clears his throat and closes his eyes again. “Anyway, back to the spirit that haunts this flat.”

Liam feels a shiver crawl up his spine as soon as Harry addresses it.

The poorly hand-made mug that sits on the table next to the television vibrates off of it and crashes to the ground, neatly severing the handle from the body.

“Ah, come on,” Louis moans. “My sisters gave me that.”

“We can fix it,” Liam mutters with another squeeze of his hand.

“Are you the spirit that haunts this flat?” Harry asks and relief floods his face when he gets the right answer. “Excellent, thank you. How are you doing? Mmm. I’m very sorry to hear that. I’m doing very well, thank you.”

“Harry, do you think we could stick to the matter at hand?” Niall mutters, his wide eyes cautiously surveying the ceiling as though at any moment he could see the spirit materialize. Liam gives a cursory glance up at the ceiling as well, but the thing’s never actually shown itself. _No corporeal form_.

“You listen here, you need to leave,” Harry says firmly. “You can’t just come into people’s homes and haunt them without their permission.”

“Who gives permission to have their home haunted?” Louis argues.

Harry makes a face at Louis in return. “Yes, I do see what you mean about that, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to be haunted,” Harry tells the spirit.

“The fuck’s it saying about me?” Louis snaps, looking like he’s going to jump up and find a way to fight the spirit. Or Harry. At this point Liam isn’t sure.

“Harry,” Niall says, but Harry holds up a placating hand.

“That’s enough of that, spirit, I call upon you to leave this place. Shoo.”

The cabinets start to rattle, the doors slam open and closed. Harry closes his eyes and lies his hands flat on the table. Liam isn’t sure if he’s imagining it or if he can feel something rolling off of Harry. The lavender fog of the crystal ball swirls faster, more furious than Liam’s ever seen it.

Harry opens his eyes and looks down at the table. Black ink slowly starts to stain the crimson cloth, an intricate script curling out letters until they can all see what it reads.

 _Twat_.

“Well, now. That was just. That was uncalled for,” Harry says, his face growing red.

The lights pop on and the door slams open, putting a sizable hole the wall as it bounces off of it. Liam winces -- he’ll have to fix that tomorrow.

“That’s my cue,” Harry says, rising to his feet and dusting off his hands.

“What? That’s it?” Louis sputters.

“Yes, I apologize. It seems I have made it, ah… well,” Harry says, appearing to debate with himself before he lands on a decision. “Angrier. I’ve made it angrier.”

“We could -- ” Niall starts.

“If you even breathe in the direction of Zayn’s name, Niall, I swear to god. He will literally hex me if he has to clean up after me _again_.”

Niall widens his eyes with mock embarrassment as he holds his hands up in supplication, after which he throws an eyeroll to Liam.

“What exactly was your plan when you came over then?” Louis accuses.

“Well, I thought I’d talk to it, you know,” Harry says. “See what’s going on. And then, like. I thought I’d ask it to leave or something. As I did. As you can see, it declined my invitation.”

“You thought you’d ask it to leave,” Louis repeats, laced with disbelief.

“I said it wasn’t my field of expertise!”

“He did say that,” Liam says reasonably. “That one’s on me.”

“You weren’t going to exorcise it?” Louis asks.

“That’s Phase _Four_ ,” Harry says, shaking his head at him like he should know that. Liam doesn’t know that. “There’s nothing to be done about this flat, Louis, I’m truly sorry.”

Harry and Niall scurry around to collect their supplies, arguing in heated whispers. Louis shoots up out of his chair to go to the kitchen and Liam follows.

“Babe,” he says quietly.

“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” Louis asks as he raises a hand to tug at his hair.

Liam’s heart starts to pound because he knows this is his chance. He should tell him what he’s wanted to tell him for weeks, since the whole thing started. Since before the whole thing started, really.

“You could… I dunno…. _youcouldmoveinwithme_ ,” Liam mumbles.

“I’m sorry?” Louis asks, his eyebrows furrowing.

“You could move in with me?” he says, enunciating much clearer.

His eyebrows go from furrowed to raised in a pleasantly surprised manner. “Okay.”

“You always have a home at mine. I mean, I’m right next door so it would be pretty fast. And we already spend most nights together anyway. Sure, your flat is a bit bigger than mine, but that’s just -- ”

“Liam.”

“Yes?”

“I said okay like half an hour ago, love,” he says with a pat to Liam’s cheek.

“Oh,” Liam says, then turns his smile on. “Brilliant.”

“We’re going, have a good evening,” Harry calls and exits far less dramatically than he had entered.

“Niall, hold on,” Liam says, running to pull him aside just before he slips out the door.

“Do you want Zayn’s phone number?” he guesses.

“Yes please.” He can’t just leave the new tenants with a disruptive spirit on their hands, that’s in poor taste. Not exactly neighborly.

“I’ll text it to you. Good luck, Liam.” He shuffles around his three cases so he can clap a Liam’s shoulder and give him a firm nod. He winks back at Louis and clambers along after Harry.

Then they’re alone. Well, not alone, because somewhere in the flat is also a spirit. But mostly it’s the two of them with corporeal forms surveying the damage. It wasn’t all bad, the haunting. Lead to a rather pleasant ending and all, but Liam would have preferred there were no spirit at all. You can’t win them all.

A plate flies across the room -- Liam ducks, pulling Louis down with him so they can watch it crash into the wall behind them.

“We should go now,” Louis says quickly.

“Yep, now, yep,” Liam says, pulling Louis’ hand along after him toward his flat. Well... Liam smiles in spite of the situation. Their flat.

\----


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one doesn't have any Lilo, just Harry and Niall!

Niall told him very specifically to wait _right here_ , so Harry’s glued to the spot, hands clasped behind his back clutching their hayride tickets. It’s a good day for it, still sunshiney enough to warrant his wide-brimmed witch’s fedora but chilly enough that he’s had to forgo his shawls for a long coat. His boots are trashed for all the mud, having completely ignored Niall’s repeated attempts to get him in a pair of wellies.

They’d been on a trip up to Cheshire to visit his mum and replenish his supplies the apothecary Harry’d worked at when he was a kid, but when he’d seen the sign on the side of the road, he insisted they stop over. You don’t walk into an apothecary empty handed.  _I used to be an apothecary_ , he keeps telling Niall. It’s just poor manners.

Once he’d seen that the pumpkin patch had a hayride, he’d all but insisted they make a morning of it.

A feeling tugs at his brain, the one that says he’s needed. It’s a lonely feeling, a bit neglected, and he doesn’t have to look far before he sets his eyes on her. She’s about four or five with a pink coat that dwarfs her. She’s standing to the side of her parents, who are hissing an argument at each other, so there’s the neglect. She’s poking at a small skeleton crumpled on a tree stump, surrounded by other fall type bits and bobs for sale.

Harry can’t help his feet as they wander over to where she’s standing.

She looks back, tugging on her mum’s coat to get her attention, and that’s when Harry takes his chance. He swoops down and rubs his his thumb over the skeleton’s small brow. He feels the life coursing through his veins, up into his fingers to pour into the ceramic skeleton. It shivers and rises to its feet, pelvis leading the movement until the thing is hunched over lazily, like a marionette.

“Go on, then,” Harry encourages, which gets its foot tapping. He nods at the skeleton and takes a few steps away to watch his magic work.

Except that she doesn’t back turn around. He clears his throat once, then twice but a bit louder, until she gives up on her mum’s coat and looks back at the skeleton, which is giving a very enthusiastic version of the Charleston.

She squeals with delight, clapping as though to spur it on a little, which it seems to do. The skeleton jumps and hops and flops about, throwing some truly crazy shapes, that ham, and her face brightens the longer it performs.

He grins, gives the skeleton a little thumbs up in encouragement. Mission accomplished.

The girl’s taken away before long, her mum grasping her hand and tugging despite the young one’s ardent pleas to take the dancing skeleton home.

He’s sad to see her go. When he moves back over to the stump to put the skeleton back to rest, it’s gone. He looks around frantically, scanning the pumpkin patch for any traces of the skeleton. He catches sight of it ambling towards the hayride line.

“Bollocks,” Harry says calmly. Then he takes off running.

The thing is lightning fast, for a foot tall ceramic skeleton held together by what looks like fishing line. It manages to flop itself out onto the cart for the hayride, slipping in between the wooden boards and burying itself into the

Harry pushes his way through the line, apologizing profusely until he gets all the way to the front. He thrusts his ticket at the poor kid who’s trying to wrangle all of the customers onto the cart and doesn’t wait to be invited on.

He stomps around the hay-covered cart, patting around for any sign

“You’re in big trouble,” Harry warns, which only causes the skeleton to dive into the hay again.

It’s a lovely ride through the forest behind the farm, Harry can tell whenever he gets a glimpse of it in between trying simultaneously to root around the hay and not disturb the other guests too much. The sun shines through the trees with their beautifully changing leaves. There’s a creek at one point. Niall will like it.

He doesn’t find the skeleton anywhere in the hay by the time they return back to the pumpkin patch. He groans, picking at all of the hay in his coat and his boots and his hair he can find, resigned to let the ceramic skeleton live its best skeleton life until the magic wears off and it collapses back into an inanimate object wherever it finds itself.

He purses his lips, disappointed. He can’t exactly pay to make up for its disappearance, go up to the cashier and insist on paying for the cost of the missing skeleton. This is just another thing someone’s going to have to clean up after him.

He’s about to give up, go back to the spot where Niall told him to wait right here, when he spies it again dancing in between the legs of the pumpkin patch browsers to his right.

Harry chases the damn thing all the way into the big red barn, full of people purchasing tea and cocoa and apple cider to fight the chill. He spies it sitting on one of the rafters high up in the barn, its little ceramic legs swinging tauntingly.

“Go on, get down from there,” Harry demands, propping his hands on his hips.

The skeleton shakes its head petulantly.

“You get down this instant!” The skeleton shakes its head again, so Harry sighs at it and goes searching for a broom. A clatter stops him in his tracks, and he turns to see the skeleton in a pile on the barn floor, clearly having aimed for the bale of hay next to it and missed terribly.

Harry swoops down and snatches the skeleton up, gives it a triumphant ha! in celebration. He notices one of the strings has popped, its feet and tibia and fibula sliding off onto the floor. Harry scoops them up, waves his hand to mend them good as new.

“That wasn’t very nice,” he tells the skeleton, and it bucks in his hands in protest. The skeleton stops struggling after a while when Harry carries him back to the tree stump, and goes limp in his hands, theatrically, its little skeleton eyes drifting shut.

“So be so melodramatic,” Harry tells it, and it peeks its eyes back open.

“Harry!” Niall calls, and Harry turns to see him stomping up with a pumpkin in his hands. He puts a few feelers out to see if Niall’s mad at him. He’s not, probably didn’t even notice Harry had gone.

“Look how fuckin’ ugly this pumpkin is,” Niall says, hoisting the poor thing a little. It’s discolored, half orange with white and brown patches, bumps all over, a misshapen top that makes it look more like a gourd than a proper pumpkin.

“We’re getting it,” Harry decides immediately.

Niall’s answering expression is dismissive. “Obviously.”

His eyes rake down Harry; his eyes get stuck on the one remaining bit of straw on Harry’s coat. Harry bats it away quickly and throws an innocent grin to Niall. Niall is either unaware or disinterested in calling Harry out, it’s a real tossup, even when Harry reads him.

“All right then, Haroldini, pumpkin first, then you can buy yourself another ticket for the hayride,” he says with a roll of his eyes and turns for the cashier, expecting Harry to follow.

The skeleton twitches in Harry’s hands, and Harry looks down at it. He swears its little skeleton face is etched into a frown. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you too,” he murmurs and lopes after Niall through the rows of pumpkins waiting for a home and the crowds of families looking to take them.

\----

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!! You're lovely!
> 
> If you need me I'm [here.](http://wickershire.tumblr.com)


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